


All That Glitters

by Camorra



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12730947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camorra/pseuds/Camorra
Summary: is not gold.Al's in Xing, Winry's not talking to him, and the Bastard has him on the run, because he can't keep his fricking political conspiracies to himself, god damn it. He wasn't even stupid enough to wish for a little excitement, what kind of effed up karma keeps giving him the raw end of the deal?





	All That Glitters

 

 

It’s ten in the morning and Ed drops his cup of coffee and the last of his sanity along with it. 

It’s a slow-motion sort of haze that makes him think for a brief moment that he could catch it, if only his limbs weren’t so damnably slow, before the mug shatters and coffee splatters and his feet get wet. 

And Ed just stares. Part of him is already calling the array to mind, wants to clap his palms together and fix the mug and carry on with his day like he used to. And that’s the part that has him twisted into seven different kinds of knots.

The other part is composing a funeral dirge for a perfectly good cup of coffee.

“Brother, are you okay?” Al calls from the other room, and that’s the impetus that finally gets him moving. 

“Yeah, just dropped my coffee,” Ed calls back, grabbing the nearest towel off the counter. He hopes it’s the floor-towel and not the dish-towel because Al was a holy terror about towel and what touches his dishes. Apparently watching cause-effect of food preparation and sickness has left a lasting impression. 

And maybe the first few months of having an undernourished immunosuppressed body. 

Fuck it, he’ll wash all the damn towels then _everything_ will be safe. 

He uses the towel to pick up broken pieces of hot porcelain and one of them cuts into his right hand, and it feels like a revelation. A Gate for his brother. His brother for his arm. Transitive property, alchemy for daring to trespass in God’s domain. 

Not even that. Alchemy for a mistake. Souls aren’t in blood, what was he thinking? They’re energy, pure and simple. A _lot_ of energy, but energy nonetheless. 

“You need to stop drinking so much coffee,” Al says, sauntering into the kitchen. “That’s what, your fourth cup in fifteen minutes? That can’t be healthy.” 

“Shut your face,” Ed says intelligently. Because there are _reasons_ he drinks five cups in the morning, thank you very much. 

“I’m just about done packing,” Al says.

“It’s about time. Only took you about four days.” 

“Whatever. Not all of us can live out of a single suitcase. Or want to, for that matter.”

“When did you become such a materialist,” Ed sighs, “don’t you know the best things in life are ephemeral and fleeting?”

“Speaking of ephemeral, where’re the notes you wanted me to take a look at? Are they on your desk?”

“Yeah, I’ll get them in a moment.”

“No, I’ll get them, it’s not like you can surprise me with your mess—“ Ed hears the door creaking open like a death knell. 

Then a startled: “Oh my.”

 

There’s a cow with a horn in Korko, a cat-dog in Habish, and a parrot that can speak unnaturally well in Notrish. 

“I don’t know, Brother, these seem like normal sort of oddities,” Al says, frowning at Ed’s wall of insanity, dozens of newspaper clippings taped to the wall in barely organized clumps, nothing like Ed’s usual careful research.  

“Can’t you see, Al, these clearly point to chimeras,” Edward says, gesturing to a particularly large clump up near the ceiling. 

Al frowns at the wall again, “I will admit there certainly are a lot of, um, incidents.” Al surveys Ed’s wall with a small frown wrinkling his eyebrows. From a quick survey, the dates go all the way back until a few days after Ed’s disastrous proposal until yesterday. 

Al runs a hand through his hair. On anyone else it’d be a sign of confusion and frustration, and maybe its starting to be, but for Al it’s a gesture of comfort. I can feel my hair. I am real. It makes something nasty that tastes like guilt and bile crawl up Ed’s throat.

“Have you considered that its just sensationalism?” 

Ed levels a glare, “Who do you take me for, some random fucking chump? Of course I’ve considered that.” Ed moves toward an adjacent wall, where the newspaper articles had begun to spread like a disease. There’s what looks to be a map, and Al realizes only after seeing Central City marked toward the center than its supposed to be Armestris. It doesn’t look right though, it’s not divided into the traditional five provinces, instead criss-crossed periodically with lines that seem to have a pattern out of the corner of your eye and none straight on. There are clusters of pins dotting the map, random colors like some sort of pox spread across the map. 

“It would be random,” Ed says, “but everything has a very clear epicenter. Ed points north, at a cluster of blue pins, “Animals with odd attributes around here,” a gesture to a clump of green pins to the West, “Humans with odd, freakish abilities,” to the south, yellow pins, “gold and gems from thin air,” and finally, a cluster of red pins situated firmly in the East, “missing persons.”

“Maybe it’s a circus,” Al suggests feebly, trying to stop the rising bile climbing up his throat. “Weird animal, weird humans, and children running off like you used to threaten to.”

Ed just gives him a steady look, it’s weighty and serious and all the things is brother is and is not. 

“Maybe,” Ed says, like he doubts it. “But it’s worth a look, isn’t it?”

 

They board a train the next day.

“It could just be an exaggeration,” Al says, after about three hours on the unforgiving wooden bench, because he is reasonable. “Eat a whole cow is just a figure of speech, Brother.”

“Or,” Ed says, “it’s the actual truth and there’s a homunculus running around the country.”

“Maybe he’s a competitive eater,” Al suggests. But he clearly doesn’t believe that himself, otherwise he would have raised these arguments _before_ they got on the train, when it would have done some good. As it is, Ed kinda hopes that there _is_ a homunculus running around, if only to justify having his ass pressed flat on a train bench.

“There’s no such thing as competitive eating,” Ed says, mostly because he feels he would know if there was. 

“There is, too. I saw an ad for it in the paper.”

Ed’s face turns thoughtful, “Maybe I should enter a few.”

“They only accept humans, not bottomless pits.”

“Ha,” Ed snorts, “You’re such a comedian, Al. Top notch, never heard that one before. What time is it?”

“Time for you to get a watch.”

“Wow, that’s just straight plagiarism.”

“From who?” Al asks. “I just came up with it. I thought it was pretty clever.”

“The bastard, who else?” He screws his face up like he’s smelled something foul, “ _No watch, Fullmetal? You could have a free, state-approved one_.  Then he smirks like it’s something funny. Like he can use _his_ , the blind bastard.”

“I heard that he’s got his sight back,” Al says.

“From who?”

Al looks downright shifty, “You know, people we know. In Central.”

Ed raises an eyebrow, “We know a lot of people in Central. Which ones? I didn’t think you kept— OH MY GOD, YOU BACKSTABBING SHIT!”

“Brother, calm —“

“Calm! _Calm?_! I find out you’ve been _conspiring_ with the Bastard and you want me to be _calm?!_ I’ll show you _calm._ ”

“Brother, you’re making a _scene,”_ Al says, and Ed thinks he’d be grasping at his pearls if he had any. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“Why are you talking to that—that—“

“Bastard?” Al supplies helpfully.

“Yes! _No,”_ Ed sputters to a stop, “Why?!”

“Because he’s a friend,” Al says.

“You thought the rabid bear was a friend, too.”

Al flushes, “Life’s different when you’re an animate suit of armor, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, not that different.” 

“It is,” Al insists. His stomach rumbles rather loudly as if to punctuate his point. “I’m hungry. How much longer?”

“I dunno. _Someone_ wouldn’t tell me what time it is. Long enough that you should just go down to the food car and get something,” Ed says, pull a book out of somewhere and propping it in front of his face. 

“I did _not_ barter with the anthropomorphic form of God to eat train food,” Al says. 

“I did not give two limbs and the power of alchemy to raise a food snob. Guess we’re both doomed to disappointment.”

“Not all of us would eat literal dirt and not care.”

“I have never eaten dirt,” Ed says, then thinks. “Well, not on _purpose_.” 

Al stares out the window for another five minutes while Ed watches under the pretense of reading his book. 

“You haven’t turned a page,” Al says eventually. “I know you’re watching.”

“It’s complex stuff. I really want to absorb it.”

Al snorts derisively, “You’ve read things in Xingese faster than you’re reading that.”

“What do you want from me? Yes, I was staring. I was wondering how I raised such a stuck-up snob,” Ed sighs dramatically, “I suppose it’s the fate of parents, to eternally wonder where they went wrong.” 

“Your personality, for one.” 

“Wow,” Ed grasps at the front of his chest, “you really aiming to wound over there? Go eat something, you get bitchy when you’re hungry.”

The rest of the journey passes as uneventfully as anything involving the Elrics can, but the sun’s already making its way past the horizon when they hit Ichling. 

Al surveys the town. It’s larger than Resembool by maybe three stores and two streetlights. “What are the odds that we can get a hotel here?”

“Hotel? Unlikely, but maybe a room in some old lady’s house.”

“Will that still work now that we’re older?” Al says. 

“I managed with a giant fucking suit of armor trailing behind me.”

“Yes,” Al says slowly, “but you also looked like a bedraggled twelve-year-old.”

“Well— YOU LITTLE SHIT—“

“I suppose you still look like a twelve-year-old,” Al says, skirting the line between life and death with ease. “Maybe we can find a place.”

“WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL HE CAN’T EVEN AGE PROPERLY?” 

They’re starting to attract attention now. Shutters opening cautiously to see what all the damn fuss is about, curious heads turning in their direction. 

“How about you stay here, and I’ll go find us a place, yeah?”

 

There is an inn in town, if you stretched the term to its farthest limits and decided to be generous. 

“This is a fucking stable.” 

Ed was not generous. 

“It’s charming and, er, rustic.”

Al was generous. 

“Whatever.” Ed throws his suitcase on one of the cots, causing a pained groan to rise from it. 

“There’s a pub downstairs,” Al says, setting his case down, “I’m going to go get information and some decent food. You want me to bring you something?”

“You’re assuming I’m not going down?”

Al just shoots him a look, which Ed ignores. 

“It looks like some rough customers down there,” Al tries again, and then backtracks furiously, “not that I think you can’t defend yourself, its just that—”

“No, I get it, Al,” Ed says, and he’s gone quiet in that way of his. A quiet Ed is a dangerous Ed, at once fragile and sharp. “It’s harder without my alchemy, but that’s why I brought _this,”_ Ed twirls the knife over his fingertips. 

Al is decidedly underwhelmed. “Ooh, a knife. That's reassuring,” Al says flatly. 

“Well, then, get ready for this!”

“Two knives. Be careful, Brother, Thor can cut you too, you know.”

“What about this!”

“But you only have two hands, what are you gonna do with the third knife? Strap it on your head like a death unicorn?”

“No, it’s for throwing,” Ed protests. 

“That’s nice, you provide your opponent with a weapon. How very good of you, Brother.”

“I can throw knives.”

“Brother, there’s a difference between throwing knives and knives that you through. Those are kitchen knives.”

“I haven’t had time to get a good set,” Ed shrugs. “Or a place, for that matter.”

“There are a few places in Central. I’m sure the General or Lieutenant could recommend you a few places.”

Ed growls, “Again with the bastard! When did you two become such good friends?”

“Fine, then, don’t ask. But you’ve got to carry some sort of long-range weapon now, Brother. Promise me you’ll stop in Central when we’re done here and get something.”

“Fine, fine,” Ed sighs, “you’re still headed to Xing, then?”

Al ducks his head, “Mei is expecting me.”

“I’m sure she is,” Ed says, wiggling his eyebrows. 

“Stop it! I don’t think I’ll go if anything comes of this, though.”

“I’m gonna ignore the fact that you’re doubting your older and wiser brother. You should go to Xing, no matter what happens to be living here.”

Al throws himself upon his cot, sending the sound of tortured metal skittering around the room. “I _can’t,_ Brother. I can’t leave you defenseless.”

“Defenseless?!” Ed sputters, “I can’t use alchemy, I didn’t suddenly become _weak_.” 

“It’d make me feel better if you had someone who could look after you, though,” Al says miserably. “You always seem to attract the worst sorts of trouble.” 

“Would it make you feel better if I found an adventure buddy?” Ed says, “someone to cry on and share secrets with at night?”

“Yes,” Al says bluntly, “preferably someone with alchemy. And that knows you. And excels in long range combat.”

Ed blinks. “That’s… an oddly specific list there, Al.”

Al shrugs, “Yes, but there’s a reason. They’ve got to have the knowledge of what’s going wrong to help combat it. And you could draw arrays for them.” 

Ed nods slowly. 

“If they know you, they know this isn’t some crackpot theory you’re making up for attention, or to reclaim former glory or something.” Ed winces at those verbal arrows. 

“Long ranger combat, because you’re shit at it.”

“Hey! Who are you calling so short—“

“It’s not about height, Ed. Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine, fine. Wait. Speaking of changing the subject, I’m still going downstairs with you.”

“Damn it.”

**Author's Note:**

> yes hello I am in desperate need a beta reader if anyone is interested please help me thanks


End file.
